The Last Girl (16 page)

“Dad, I swear. Nothing. I wish I did. I wouldn’t lie about something like this. You know me.”

I’ve never been a troublemaker. I’ve never had big issues with my parents. They know I’m not the type to make shit like this up. As their faces soften, I know they’re thinking the same thing.

I’m not sure what has happened to me, but the knowledge that I haven’t been harmed in any way is comforting, at least. It’s disconcerting to have such a wide gap in my memory that no one can fill in—except maybe that man. I brush that thought aside. If I haven’t been harmed, as unsettling as this is, surely I can pick up and move on. There’s no trauma to heal from, just a puzzling confusion.

As I go back to school, people give me a wide berth. I can see most don’t believe me like my parents did. Not even Devon. That hurts. I thought we had something. Teachers, friends, they all keep a wary distance as if I’m some sort of psychopath who would create this type of lie.

The only place where anything feels normal or safe is the bakery. It’s difficult to get up so early to ice cookies now. I feel like I should be sleeping different hours. I can’t remember it being this difficult before, but it seems there are a lot of things I don’t remember.

“No nightmares?” my mom asks one morning as she takes cinnamon rolls out of the oven. As usual, she’s covered in flour. The familiarity of the moment would be comforting if not for her question.

“What? I told you I don’t remember anything and there’s no evidence that—”

“No. I mean from before. You used to have nightmares a lot, but you never told me the details no matter how hard I pressed. I eventually gave up trying to find out.”

Nightmares? I don’t recall ever having nightmares, not enough that they would be some standing feature in my life my mother would comment upon.

“Oh. No. I haven’t had any recently.” Or ever. I don’t bother to tell her I can’t remember any nightmares. The incongruity would only upset her. My family is still coming to terms with the disappearance I can’t remember. The doctors have done brain scans and found nothing amiss. This revelation would just cause them added distress that can’t be fixed.

I try to shrug and go on with life. At night sometimes I have what I can’t quite describe as dreams. They are more gaps, black voids. The void frightens me for some reason. There is nothing there, but it’s just the fact that I’m experiencing this weird black nothingness in the place of a dream. It feels like there should be something there, something I’m blocking.

I think the nightmares my mom says I had, the three-month memory gap, and the mysterious stranger are all somehow connected, but no picture, no narrative is emerging. I’m afraid to know what it is. Though no marks were found on me, I still fear the truth of what I’m missing is so horrible it’s best forgotten. Maybe that’s why I’ve forgotten it.

As the weeks drag on, I regret not calling out to the man. In my head I’ve played this out a million times... I imagine things went differently, that I called out to him and asked what just happened. Different wild scenarios play out in my head, but none of them feel true. And anyway, he probably wouldn’t have answered the question. He probably wouldn’t have even turned around. Somehow I know he would have kept moving, gotten into his car, and driven off, just like what already happened.

***

I wake in a cold sweat. The void dream happened again, only this time, I heard something. A strange male voice: “Pray I don’t love you, Juliette.” The voice reverberates in my head long after I wake. It’s three a.m., so I go ahead and get up and get ready to go to the bakery.

“You’re here early,” my mother says, a note of concern in her voice. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I start mixing the icing for the butterfly cookies. In the weeks since I lost my memory, my parents have each been surrounded by a chaotic energy. It’s like they don’t know what to do with me. It seems as if only they have suffered because I don’t remember anything, except now I do.

I’m sure the dream is a memory. “Pray I don’t love you, Juliette.” The voice calls out to me from the void, like God. I turn it over in my head. What does it mean? What the hell happened to me?

Each night a new piece comes in the puzzle, but I can’t seem to link them in any meaningful way. They’re all a jumble, each night offering a contrast in terror and bliss.

Wednesday morning I wake with a piece: strange music. The music makes me inexplicably horny even though there is nothing in the nature of it that would suggest sex. I masturbate three times trying to tamp down the feeling.

Thursday morning another piece falls into place: A strangely illuminated room with urns. Names. Dates. A black book. One hundred women. That fact shines out the brightest. I have no idea what it means.

Friday morning I see a club, only most of the patrons aren’t normal. They have glowing red eyes and fangs. I’m frightened by the images, but beginning to doubt any of these things are memories. They can’t be. Music that makes you horny? A strange lover I can’t remember? Fangs? I don’t believe in vampires. No one who isn’t a permanent resident of a mental ward believes in vampires.

Saturday morning rolls around and I’m beginning to long for the void dreams. This time I see a prostitute murdered brutally in front of me, but I can’t see her killer. The last thing I see before I wake up is her body kicked out of a limousine into a gutter. I’m cracking up. I’ve gone crazy. I must have. None of this makes sense. I can’t imagine a situation in which any of this can be real.

Sunday morning as I sleep, burning pain sears my back as a knife slices through it. The pain is followed by the certain feeling I’m going to die. Upon awakening I’m afraid to ever sleep again. I get up and rush to the mirror. Even though doctors said I had no marks or scars, I know something like that would scar. It felt too deep. It happened over and over. I lift my shirt and look in the mirror, but there is nothing there but my back, smooth and free of scars just like the doctors said.

My gaze darts to the window. I’m unsettled by the sudden impression of someone watching me. I know it’s insane and paranoid, but I can’t get rid of the creepy feeling. I shut the blinds and call mom at the bakery to tell her I can’t come in. I can’t go out there. A few days pass without incident. I think the dreams are gone, though I still have trouble making myself go to work before the sun has risen.

I can’t explain why I feel as if nothing can touch me in the sunlight, but the strange feeling persists, giving rise to fear as I go to work, and calmness at most other times when the sun is shining.

Wednesday morning changes everything. This time in the dream I see him. A glimpse of his face triggers everything. “Christian.”

Memories come flooding back, reassembling into their proper order as if nothing was ever taken from my mind.

He must have been outside my window the night I looked at my back. I felt him through the connection I’d forgotten. Does he know I remember? Will he try to make me forget again? He can’t if I don’t let him. Seeing how impossible it is to move on with my life, with or without clear memory of him, it’s not something I’m prepared to let him do again.

I keep my blinds shut and don’t venture out at night anymore. I ask my mother for a different job, one where I don’t have to get up so early. She finally agrees, worrying that perhaps something bad
did
happen to me, and I’m justifiably afraid of being out in the middle of the night.

I don’t want to risk running into Christian. He’ll try to convince me to let him try again, and I just can’t let him. I know it pains him, but it can’t be helped. Time can’t be rewound carefully back onto its spool as if nothing ever happened.

I feel as if I’m stuck in the worst of all worlds. I can’t go back to Christian even though I know where his home is. I could show up on his doorstep, but I’m sure it won’t do any good. He was so determined to get rid of me. Everyone I know except my parents keep their distance because they think I’m a liar. I don’t have any scars as proof of my captivity. I have no battle wounds I can point to that will make them feel pity and pat me on the arm to reassure me time will heal.

Time heals nothing. I can’t live like this. I become increasingly despondent and detached. I know what I’m about to do is beyond selfish. I know it will hurt Christian, but he’s immortal. He’ll find some way to move past it, but I can’t. I’m only human, and I can’t be expected to carry this anymore.

I’m also angry at him. I’m angry he’s thrown me away, that he took me to begin with, that we’ve had to play out this tragedy on the world’s stage. I’m determined to play my role, ensuring a satisfying tragedy rather than a mildly sad tale.

I go through several variations of a suicide note. One for my family. One for Christian. The one for my family is surprisingly easy. Guilt rips at me for leaving them, for leaving all of them, both my family and Christian, but I can’t live without him. And I can’t live with him. So I simply can’t live. Christian knows deep down. He has to. He’ll understand some day.

The note for Christian takes forever. I go through so many note cards, I fear I’ll have to stop off at the stationery store again, but finally, I end up with the right message. The only message. I seal the envelope and drive to his house.

I don’t worry about being caught because it’s still daylight and he can’t come out. He can’t stop me. If I time things right, he won’t be able to stop me once the sun sets because I’ll already be on another plane of existence, out of his reach.
And anyway, he won’t be able to come inside. I never invited him in.

I drop the square cream-colored envelope through the mail slot in his front door. I hear the paper hit the floor. I know now that some of my senses have become permanently heightened over time, the result of so much of his blood inside me. It’s why I heard the doctor’s whispered words that night at the hospital.

When I arrive at my apartment, I lock the door and run bath water. I stare for a long time at the straight-edge razor sitting on the edge of the tub, then I slide it across my wrist, trying not to think too hard about what I’ve just done.

~ CHRISTIAN ~

It has required every ounce of my self-control not to take Juliette again. I can’t stay away from her. I hover outside her window each night as she gets ready for work. I tell myself I’m ensuring she arrives safely, that another predator doesn’t get her, but I’m stalking prey. It’s only a matter of time before I take her again. I should have abandoned my home and moved to Tampa to put much-needed distance between us.

I worry she’s remembering. As I watched her look at her back in the full-length mirror in her room, I tried to convince myself she was inspecting a mosquito bite, but when she looked in my direction and then closed her blinds, I knew.

I knew her mind was too strong, that no amount of suggestion would hold her for long.

I doubt she saw me, but she must sense me. I can’t read her thoughts anymore, of course, but I can still sense her emotions if I’m near enough. Thankfully, I can’t feel her from my house.

Soon after that night, she stopped going to work and though I’ve hovered outside, she hasn’t come out again. I could go inside. She wouldn’t be able to stop me. A blood bond like ours revokes the traditional rules to gain entrance. I’m inside her and she’s inside me. We are far beyond the formality of an invitation.

But I remain in the darkness because if I cross her threshold, I will take her back. To hell with the consequences. I don’t want her dead, but I can’t maintain this self-control forever. No other human is my Juliette. I’ve tasted thousands and fucked just as many. It’s all empty and meaningless. I miss her so much.

I get dressed, determined to go to the club and find some willing fuck toy to distract me when I notice the envelope on the rug in the foyer. The outside is blank, but I know it’s from her. I can smell her scent all over it. I slit it open with the letter opener on the desk and pull out the crisp, thick card.

A single sentiment glares back at me in blood red ink. “101”.

My blood runs cold. I’m irrationally angry. How dare she take matters into her own hands and kill herself? How DARE she take herself out of my reach? My love for her fades into the background, and the only thing I feel is raw possession.

Whatever human emotions have sublimated my animal nature, they are gone now, replaced by the certainty of my continued ownership of her. She is MINE. She will be mine until
I
say otherwise. She will be mine until
I
kill her. No one and nothing but me will take her out, including her own hand.

I’m out the door, blurring toward her apartment. I don’t bother with a car because this way is faster. Underneath my rage, pain and fear clamp down on my heart.
What if she’s gone? What if it’s too late to save her?

I don’t know what I’ll do with her if I save her. I may just turn around and kill her again if I can’t keep the angry beast in his cage.

I smell her blood now. The deadbolt doesn’t stop me. I kick the door in and it splinters. Her blood pulls me down the hallway, and I have to push away the blood lust to remember why I’m here: to save her, so I can punish her for daring to leave the world I gifted her with.

Seeing her in the tub, lifeless, the water turned dark by her blood, stops me. The anger drains out, replaced by anguish.

“Juliette, no.” My whisper feels loud enough to draw neighbors. I haven’t stopped to consider what I’ll do when someone shows up to find her front door in a hundred pieces. Right now I don’t care how much carnage I leave for others to find. She’s gone.

I pull her out of the water, cradling her in my arms. I don’t care about my Armani. She’s not breathing. Her heart isn’t beating. I don’t know how long she’s been dead, but it’s too late. It doesn’t matter; I have to try. I sink my fangs in her throat and drink.

The blood still tastes fresh. I try not to let myself hope this means anything. Just because it’s fresh doesn’t mean I made it soon enough. I’m angry again. I want to snap her in two for this, but if she’s dead, there’s no point in such a display.